Sports betting scandal a letdown for college fans in Iowa

As a die-hard Iowa State Cyclone fan of over three decades, I’m accustomed to two things: Frequent heartache, and occasional triumph. The former is stated in good humor. Longtime fans often measure loyalty to our team by how much despair we’ve endured watching them lose. The joy we feel after a hard-fought win keeps us coming back for more of the games we love, played by the team we love. Although there’s no accounting for taste, Iowa Hawkeye fans undoubtedly feel the same.

Yesterday was the season opener for both the Iowa and Iowa State football teams. Your friendly neighborhood opinion columnist (that’s me) was there, sitting under the sweltering late summer sun to watch the Cyclones take on the Northern Iowa Panthers at Jack Trice Stadium in Ames. By the time this column drops, we’ll know the final score. As this column was due about 24 hours before kickoff, I can’t say for sure as I write this who the victor is.

That’s not the only unknown as I write this. I don’t even know who my team plans to start at quarterback, which, for all you non-sports-watching readers, is a pretty important decision. What I do know is that both my team and the Team Out East (as my people sometimes refer to the Hawkeyes) have taken a bit of a hit to their morale over these last few weeks and months as both schools have been rocked by revelations of student-athlete online sports betting.

Online sports betting was legalized in Iowa in 2019 after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling paved the way for states to enact legislation to allow it. Iowa’s new law specified that eligible participants must be at least 21 years of age.

Legal eligibility aside, rules set by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) prohibit student-athletes from wagering on any sport at any level if that sport is sanctioned by the NCAA, regardless of whether the athlete’s school has a program for that sport. For example, even though Iowa State ended its baseball program in 2001, no student-athlete at Iowa State or any other NCAA institution may bet on any type of baseball game from Little League to the Major League because baseball is an NCAA-sanctioned sport at other colleges (including the University of Iowa.)

In May, both Iowa and Iowa State announced that a combined 41 student-athletes between the two schools were suspected of wagering on sports in violation of NCAA rules and that over 100 people were part of an investigation by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation. Since then, a number Iowa and ISU student-athletes have been brought up on aggravated misdemeanor charges for tampering with records for allegedly concealing their identities while placing bets.

To put it briefly, both the Hawkeyes and Cyclones will see their football competition affected this season by the loss of players. As of Friday morning, one player from Iowa remained under an NCAA-imposed suspension, effectively ending his college playing career. The NCAA has also suspended two from Iowa State’s football squad — one of them permanently. Two more left the team in the wake of their charges. Complete coverage of the saga, including a database of each player facing charges, their school and their sport, can be found online at thegazette.com/sports-betting/.

So, the Cyclones have lost at least four major players due to alleged improper gambling. As fan, though it pains me to say it, I will: It feels like a tremendous letdown.

Any serious fan will tell you that loyalty to a team stems from much more than just the sport, the game, or the team itself. Our fandom celebrates the events and relationships that shape our lives. To alumni, fandom is a celebration of some of the most fun and formative years of their lives — the friends they made, the knowledge they gained, the paths they started on. To neighbors and colleagues who find that they cheer for the same team, gathering to watch a game is a celebration of a friendship beyond just casual niceties.

To a child, fandom is a celebration of the inspiration they derive from watching their idols play. To a couple who met in college decades ago, it’s a celebration of the life they built at the very place that brought them together. To their offspring, many of whom themselves become students of the same institution, it’s a celebration of their upbringing and the families in which they grew up.

When the Chicago Cubs made it to the World Series in 2016, a die-hard Cubs fan from North Carolina made news after he drove to Indiana to listen to the final (winning) game on the radio at the gravesite of his father to honor a pact they had made — 36 years earlier — that when the Cubs finally returned to the World Series, they would listen to the game together.

Some of the happiest memories from my childhood stem from Iowa State Cyclone games. My late grandfather, the original Cyclone of the Cole family, would get so excited during close games that he would do pushups in their living room in Story City during commercial breaks to channel his energy. After a big win, our phone would ring. Even before caller ID, we knew it was Grandpa and Grandma calling to gush about the game. To this day, after every big Cyclone victory, I tell myself that Bob Cole is doing pushups in heaven. I loved that man.

It’s those very experiences, those memories, that are tarnished when we learn that the games we loved watching weren’t 100 percent pure. Our allegiance made the games important. What made them exciting was the dedication our players showed. Big wins like the Cyclones’ thrilling 2017 victory over seemingly unbeatable 3rd-ranked Oklahoma on the Sooners’ own field didn’t happen because our players had superior talent or skill. They happened because our players didn’t quit. They didn’t lose focus. But a player cannot be focused on their team or their mission when financial interests, big or small, divert their attention elsewhere.

Part of me wants to sympathize. Recent changes to the governing of sport, both through court rulings and institutional policy, have practically transformed college athletics overnight, with little time for law and culture to adjust. Only a decade ago, online sports betting was largely prohibited by federal law. NCAA rules required any student-athlete undergrad who wished to transfer to a different school to delay their eligibility to play by a year, called “redshirting.” Strict rules against compensating student-athletes made it virtually impossible for them to earn any money if scholarships and stipends didn’t cover all of their living expenses.

In just a few short years, the NCAA’s new transfer portal rules removed the redshirt requirement. A U.S. Supreme Court decision struck down federal prohibitions on online sports betting, and many states followed by legalizing it. Another U.S. Supreme Court antitrust decision, coupled with new laws in some states, spooked the NCAA into allowing student-athletes to be compensated for use of their name, image and likeness, or “NIL” for short. Student-athletes have more freedoms — and cash — than ever before.

But too much new freedom at once has caused a whiplash in college sports. Programs have to contend with the distraction of their student-athletes building their own personal brands worth hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars.

For some, their brand is tied to performance. Iowa women’s basketball player Caitlin Clark’s NIL value soared after her performance in the NCAA Women's Basketball Final Four. Currently, she is valued at over $750,000. For others, their brand is tied primarily to how they market themselves on social media. Olivia Dunne, a gymnast at Louisiana State University, has never placed higher than 5th in any collegiate competition. Yet her social media accounts have over 7.5 million followers. Her reported NIL value is over $3 million.

Add the lure of online sports betting to an already volatile mix of popularity and money and thrust it upon a 20-year-old, and … whoa.

“The normalization of gambling has become so front and center,” says former college athlete Brock Gillespie, who played Division 1 basketball for Rice University in Houston from 2001-2005 before a pro career that took him all over the world. “You look at ESPN and they have gambling lines right on the screen. It’s become so mainstream, that these kids think, ‘What’s the big deal?’ People are desensitized to it now.”

Surely other states and other programs have their own student-athlete betting nightmares to sort out. Our state is perhaps the canary in the coal mine for accountability. But if student-athletes in Iowa were desensitized to the risk of violating the rules, the current scandal is quite a wake-up call.

Now that it’s happened, we’ve no choice but to wait for the investigation to conclude and take our lumps in the meantime. ISU fans are used to despair. Still, it’s when the odds are against them (no pun intended) that our Cyclones tend to do their best, reveling in their role as the underdog. You could probably say the same about that other team.

Comments: 319-398-8266; althea.cole@thegazette.com

This article has been updated to reflect more recent information on player suspensions as of September 3, 2023.